Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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24 Days Of Local Sunlight – Day 12, 13, 14 and 15
We have reached the middle of the month, which means there isn’t many days left in my 24 Days of Local Sunlight! So let me get a thankin!
My thanks goes out to Annapolis Politics, Fighting 29th, South Texas Chisme and Triad Watch.
Annapolis Politics written by Brian Gill covers about Annapolis and surrounding areas. Whether it’s live blogging city council meetings or offering budget solutions Annapolis Politics is a great place to find information about the local government. I really liked his work highlighting shady elected official business and one of my favorites posts explaining campaign finance information.
Fighting 29th is a blog that focuses on the activities of its representative Eric Massa. Written by Rottenchester who also maintains Congressdb, which you can use to compare congressional votes. One of my favorite posts is the one that Rep. Massa voting against Time Warner even though they are one of his major donors. Another great series of posts was about the previous occupier of district 29th’s seat, former Rep. Kuhl and they were highlighting how difficult it was to find out how much congressional travel to other countries costs. This blog is a great example of how to really follow your member of Congress.
South Texas Chisme is “a collection south Texas political gossip”. I like reading it because you can find a wide variety of different information not the least of which transparency related. I have highlighted posts about personal financial disclosures and campaign finance reports. It is very neat to be able to stop at one blog and see what is going on in a whole region. I hope people see my local sunlight’s that way too. A snapshot of transparency in the local level.
Triad Watch is keeping an eye out on North Carolina, by doing research and keeping an eye out on what is going on on the local level. Like this post about local developers giving free rides to local elected officials to Washington, DC or posting the City of Greensboro’s disbursements online to see what government money is working locally.
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. This week I have highlights from Pennsylvania, Texas, Hawaii and New York.In Pennsylvania, Commonwealth Foundation has a post about the need for more transparency in the state contractor awarding system. The Department of General Services has been reprimanded for their lack of competitive bidding for state contracts. Also quite problematic is that they don’t have any information on changes to contracts so taxpayers don’t have a good idea on how much they are spending. The end of the post they ask for a state spending database, I’ll go a step forward and say they need a state database that is also updated in REAL TIME, so these change to contracts aren’t hidden through a slow update schedule.
Texas Watchdog has a post about one of the candidates for mayor of Houston, who made her’s and her partner’s personal tax returns public voluntarily to Texas Watchdog. Her opponent has not responded to requests. The tax forms are now online for citizens to see. It is great to see candidates voluntarily submit their financial information to third party watchdogs. Especially if the city or state don’t post that information publicly or don’t do it quick enough for citizens to see before they vote.
In Hawaii, Ian Lind has a post about an information request that the Department of Human Resources filled for him. His version was complete with the information clear and not altered in anyway. Hawaii has a Docushare system that provides information that was requested, however the same document Ian requested has been altered to exclude information that he is able to see from his personal request. There is clearly a problem with how documents go from the private request to the public system. I hope they figure out a way to go from one to another without changing the document because this doesn’t serve the public trust.
In New York, Politics on the Hudson has a post about NYPIRG putting online the handwritten financial disclosure forms from state officials. Lawmakers are required to file these forms but the law doesn’t require them to show how much they make in outside income or any outside dealings. These forms should be online already it is a little ridiculous that they have to be computerized by a third party. With the improvements that New York has been making I hope this is on their list to improve.
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Texas Has A Watchdog
The state level is a mix and match of some openness and an incredible amount of opacity. That is why groups like Texas Watchdog are worth their weight in gold. According to their site they are “a news Web site and training center that scrutinizes the actions of government agencies, bureaucracies and politicians in Texas. It is an independent, nonpartisan entity founded on the belief that our American democracy depends on transparency in government.” They have been doing excellent work bringing Texas into the light and keeping their elected officials accountable. This is why we welcome Jennifer Peebles to share her experience advocating for transparency in Texas. – Nisha Thompson
By JENNIFER PEEBLES
With 254 counties, 1,200 school districts and a population of about 24 million, the commercials are right: Texas really is like a whole other country.It’s also a country where you have no legal right to know who has applied to be your kid’s next school superintendent, where public officials think open meetings laws trample their free speech rights, and where state legislators keep paper records of who is snooping in their ethics forms.
As the deputy editor for Texas Watchdog, a Houston-based nonprofit news site that launched about a year ago, I advocate for government transparency and try to help average folks who are trying to get government information. We request a lot of records for our own investigative reports as well as just to upload to the Web so that journalists, citizen-journalists and just plain citizens can access them more easily.
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Texas, Michigan, and Maine.Texas Watchdog reports on a loophole in Texas personal financial disclosure filings. Spouses of elected officials do not have to be included in disclosure filings. Considering that spouses could have considerable wealth and influence, this loophole should be eliminated. Spouses could have investments that are affected by policy and potential conflicts of interest should be made public.
In Michigan, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood highlights an OpenSecrets.org article on donations made to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee by the insurance industry. Rep. Mike Rogers is on the committee and is the fourth highest beneficiary of donations . The post notes that even though Rep. Rogers was elected in 2000 he is prominently placed on the insurance industry’s radar.
In Maine, Union Maine posts about Congresswoman Pingee answers some questions they sent to the Maine congressional delegation. The blog asked her office a few questions about their health care: “What does it cost? How much do they pay? How much do we pay for them? .” Rep. Pingee is the only office in Maine that responded to Union Maine’s questions. The post goes into more information about congressional health care coverage. It is a great example of how members of Congress can gain points by answering constituent questions. It really is that easy.
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Local Spotlight: Mapping Texas
Texas Watchdog is a great organization working toward state level transparency in Texas, they just released a map with all Texas lawmakers on it with links to all kinds of great information about them. It is a great visual and an example of how information digging doesn’t have to be reserved for spreadsheets.
Where do Texas’ lawmakers make their money? Who are they in business with? Texas Watchdog has the details
(Looking for a specific lawmaker’s 2009 ethics form? Click here to skip down to a list of legislators: Senators / House members)Texas Watchdog presents its 2009 map of Texas’ 181 lawmakers, including their state ethics forms and useful links that will allow the public to research each lawmaker’s campaign contributions, the bills they pushed in the last legislative session and contact information so the average citizen can let their voice be heard.
The map is intended to be an update of our 2008 map. The legislators’ 2008 ethics forms are integrated into this new map, but if you want to see how this map is an improvement over last year’s, we encourage you to look at the old map.Texas legislators and many other state officials are required by law to fill out annual forms, formally titled “personal financial statements,” to the state Ethics Commission detailing their sources of income. Required categories include for whom they work, what stocks and bonds they own, and their business interests.
State officials are supposed to file by April, but they are allowed to seek a one-time extension of the deadline until June.
Readers will note that a few lawmakers have more than one ethics form for 2009. That’s because they turned in their form and later turned in a corrected version. We’ve tried to present all the versions of the 2009 forms here.
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Local Sunlight 8/6/09
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have posts from Texas, Hawaii and Illinois.
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Local Sunlight 6/15/09
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada and Texas.Maryland Politics Watch has a list of where to find the earmark requests for Maryland’s congressional delegation. The lawmakers from Maryland have requested over$1 billion in earmarks appropriations combined. I wonder if the links go to their transportation earmarks too.
Mississippi’s Yall Politics has a post detailing what FedEx has spent on lobbying and how much they have given to former senator Trent Lott’s lobbying firm. Apparently FedEx has been lobbying on the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act and the part of the bill that deals with making workers organize with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
In Missouri, Turner Report has a revolving door post about a former state Sen. John Loudon who is returning to the state capitol has a lobbyist. One of his first clients just happens to be a firm that is run by his wife.
Nevada’s Desert Beacon has a great post about the lobbying money around health care. Blue Cross and Blue Shield apparently spent $1.8 million to date. With that kind of money floating around there have definitely been a lot of parties happening around health care.
Texas Watchdog has a post highlighting a story about a state Rep. Wayne Christian who apparently wrote an amendment to a bill that would allow only the area of around his beach front property to be developed on. Apparently in Texas it is illegal to build on public beaches, however, Rep. Christian felt a exemption should be allowed.
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Local Sunlight 4/30/09
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Texas.
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Texas Transparency Make Over!
Texas’ Comptroller Susan Combs has started a new initiative to bring the state’s budget out in the open by launching Open Book Texas. Combs has been dedicated to more transparency in the budget process, earlier this year she launched a searchable database of state spending called Where the Money Goes. The creation of this site taught the agency a lot about making government more efficient.
“Where the Money Goes provides transparency to taxpayers, and we discovered that our emphasis on transparency made our own operations more transparent to us,” Combs said. “We were able to better analyze where and how we were spending money within our agency and where and how we could save.”
Combs’ agency says it has saved $4.8 million and identified an additional $3.8 million in expected cost savings. Some examples of the cost savings at the Comptroller’s office include saving $73,000 by consolidating multiple contracts for toner cartridges and establishing separate post office boxes to receive different types of tax payments, thereby avoiding having to spend $328,000 to buy and maintain a new mail sorter. These savings allow the agency to strengthen core functions without requesting additional funding from the Legislature.
“Now we are moving forward to apply some of those same transparency and ‘buying smart’ strategies that have been successful at our office to take an unprecedented look at Texas government spending,” Combs said. “Our Smart Buy initiative has already begun digging through what state agencies spend annually for goods and services.”
Another part of the site, Texas Transparency Check-up, is dedicated to making local governments more transparent. With this site you can see which local governments have their budgets online, get a step by step guide to make your city more transparent, and share your story on advocating for more information.
The final part of the new site, Single Set of Books, is a planning site for state agencies to standardize the way they report financial information. The goal is to make all the state’s financial books uniform so it will be easier to see what Texas’ financial situation really looks like.
Everything about this project is fantastic. Of course, the next step is to make these sites more interactive and more supportive of citizen input. Financial transparency is one of the easiest and more popular steps that can be made to make citizens feel their money is valued. Budgetary processes should be transparent, everybody pays taxes and that means they are invested in what the state does. So good job Texas for not only making their process more transparent but advocating for more transparency across the state.
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Nevada, Alaska and Connecticut.
(Continue reading…)
